5.24.2014

Watch Vitaly
Valentinovich for a minute or two and it is clear that he’s quite shy. He bites
his lip and rocks forward before launching himself into the crowd again.
Shoppers and commuters rush past him at the Svyatoshin Metro station in Kyiv.

Three
days before Ukraine’s Presidential election, Vitaly is trying to pass out
flyers for the Demokratiya Party. Despite his hesitations, he gets some takers.
A few people grab papers out of his hands, unlike the advertisers down the
aisle whom everyone ignores. I ask him why he does this work, since he is
clearly uncomfortable doing it.

“I work
because of the money. They pay me 18 hryvnia per hour” (about US$1.50), he tells
me. “The money is the goal — politics is not what I care about. We have the war
here and people were killed and that’s the main problem — it’s not about
political views, it’s just about stability in the country. I still haven’t
decided who I’ll vote for — there’s a lot of choice.”